Forest of Rope

Chapter 28

A quiet town, forever nameless in Riley's memory, forever repressed. The uncanny resemblance of Aokigahara to the knotted wood that had encircled the town of his birth brought it alive again. Until now, the unpleasant thought of his early childhood had been as distant and safely unreachable as a fading star. Now it seemed the forest itself had teleported him reluctantly into the past, back to when that star was burning bright with the incalculable chaos of a supernova.

The town itself was an island. An island in a sea of green. Riley picked out what must have been a raven soaring overhead and imagined himself flying above the world. Far below he pictured two infinitesimal strands of people treading in the steps of countless infinitesimal strands that had since moved on and disappeared from the world completely. They were specks of flesh in the leafy green, insects in a trap. From a false God's eye view Riley continued to soar above the sporadic rise and fall of the trees until he beheld the hallucinatory settlement.

A quiet town indeed, perfectly inconspicuous, perfectly preserved. Like a moat the forest contained it, quarantined it. Outsiders were rare, newcomers were scrutinised, veterans were cherished, veterans were conceited. Row after row of perfect and pure suburban palaces, white picket fences, smiling faces. Dotted around the street were more perfect, smiling people. They reminded Riley of inanimate dummies in a mock town soon to be utterly eviscerated by an atomic bomb. A mock town, a test site.

But for all its mystery and purity, not a single house could contend with the Moores. Here, an isolated bubble world drifted silently, unrelenting. As a child it had fascinated Riley: its stately ordinance, its well-kept garden, its leering, white-faced inmates... Who were they? Young Riley had wondered, watching the house intently from his bedroom window. And what were they hiding?

The Moores had arrived in this sleepy hollow on a particularly languid July afternoon. The moving truck had pierced through the sweltering heat and disrupted the peace, not a few curtains had twitched. The neighbourhood had been compromised. Almost immediately the self-elected leader of the avenue took it upon herself to leave a dainty offering of hand-picked pears on the porch of the queer household when its blackened oak-panelled door refused to open upon her knocking and waiting for an entire twenty-five minutes. Riley knew this because he'd watched, partly out of curiosity, partly from idleness, from his window. At first he'd reasoned that there was simply no one at home and that Mrs Tomolino was simply wasting her time. That was until he caught a glimpse of a gaunt, ashen figure standing forebodingly above the woman from a second-storey window, eyeing her with noticeable contempt. The apparition lasted but for a moment since a curtain fell dramatically before its ghostly presence before he could get a closer look. But Riley was certain that it had been a woman.

Throughout the remainder of the day, Riley had stooped over his bedroom desk, knocking askew the platoon of figurines that lined the windowsill to check if anyone from across the street had bothered to come out and retrieve the basket. They never did. He could remember how the pears had gradually disintegrated in the July sun, degrading into pulp, attracting flies and hornets. The sheer embarrassment of the rejection came as much of a shock to Riley as it did the rest of the Avenue. Rumours were circulated, gossip was perpetuated. Surely we didn't fight a war only to let people like this come and ruin this great country? They were surely immigrants. Russians, said a neighbour; Romanians, said another.

In fact, the contentious basket became so widely spoken about that it eventually fell out of fashion like a fad within the community, replaced by tales of a newer more outrageous family on Sycamore Street whose promiscuous daughters had a habit of changing in full view of Mrs Winchet's kitchen. But such gabbling didn't hold much interest for Riley. Instead, he continued to spy on the ghost house until at last, like the appearance of a mythical creature, a girl, almost his age, emerged from out the door and picked up the now decrepit basket. She had pale white skin like the woman he'd spied in the window but with shining raven-black hair. Riley watched in silent awe as she carried the rotting thing calmly to the trash can. The little girl dusted her hands after depositing it with a clang.

Her features were thin and sharp, vampiric, almost emaciated. Riley gawped at her, caught her eye and ducked. She looked right up at him with a curiosity that may have equalled his own. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw her maybe smirking at him.

After an eternity of discomfort she finally pivoted, shifted lightly back to the porch and became enveloped by the house.